Just News and Ramblings From Your Average Author

That was not as bad around here as most other places in New York. The central part of the storm passed us by, thankfully. Did cause some issues this morning, though. At least we still have all of our trees intact and the creek out back didn’t try to drown us.

NaNoWriMo starts on Thursday! Yay! I’m still struggling to come up with a title for mine… I am once again using November to finish something I started over the summer, like last year with MtbB. I think I’ll do this every year. Yay for being a rebel! They should make NaNo Rebel tee-shirts… By the way, feel free to be my buddy!

And it’s that time of year… voting! And by that, I mean for the Goodreads Choice Awards (though election voting is also a very good idea).

After I get a day off from classes tomorrow. I really do not want to commute 40 miles in this weather. I just want to stay home in a nest of blankets with some hot chocolate (if we lose power I will make a fire in the fireplace and boil water the real old school way), and the books I want to finish reading. Goal is to stay home as much as possible. Staying safe and dry so far. Hoping if we lose power it comes back before NaNo starts. Yay NaNo!

Well, my classes started this week, and I am super super stressed about the interview I have Friday morning for an internship. So stressed that I can’t do anything productive at all. Nothing. My face hurts from clenching my jaw so hard.

Anyway, in an attempt to de-stress, I started stalking Cassandra Clare’s blog. I have only read the first three books of The Mortal Instruments, and I’m taking a hiatus from reading the series until I either, (a) decide for some reason to keep on reading, or (b) I find out that she fixes this silly Magnus/Alec mess she made. But I stalked her blog to see what she had to say about the Magnus/Alec (I refuse to be a super fangirl, thus, I don’t use “Malec”) situation. This is my conclusion from fairly recent posts.

One fan asked her: any chance we’ll get to meet new guy characters in City of Heavenly Fire? and will they be cute?

Clare answered: You’ll have to wait for Dark Artifices for new hot guys. :) [OK, there may be some cameos from the TDA characters in CoHF. So that counts a bit.]

Another fan asked: in city of heavenly fire, is alec okay? I mean after the break up :( — also in the dark artifices, since it isn’t set SO much in the future, will simon and isabelle and alec and jace and clary and magnus and all that jazz be in the dark artifices as well? I mean, as supporting characters.

Clare answered: Alec spends a lot of time drunk-dialing Magnus. Alec is ok.It’s part of being human: you live, you love, you get your heart broken, you go on. Maybe you get that love back and maybe you get a different one. Alec has good friends and family that love him and that’s what he’s relying on at the beginning of Heavenly Fire. As for Dark Artifices, those cast members of Mortal Instruments who survive will be checked in with — they’ll be twenty-two, twenty-three, years old, so adults, really. The whole bunch of them are not going to hang around, hogging the narrative, because it’s Emma and Julian and Mark and the rest’s story, not theirs, but we’ll know what they’re up to — who’s married, who stayed together, who didn’t…

So, if we look at these answers together, she is basically saying that the characters from the new series will have cameos in the final book of TMI, but there are no new guys added to the cast. Following that same line, the characters from TMI will be making cameos in the next series. She basically hints that something will happen with Alec, because she could have just said, very simply, “you move on.” But look at what she really said. Maybe it’s a character making an appearance from the new series, but writing about a relationship where one half doesn’t have a major part in the story seems pretty freaking difficult.

My opinion: She’s going to fix this mess.

At least, I hope so. Because the other option is that one of them dies.

Where was I this past weekend? At the Sterling Renaissance Festival in Sterling, NY!

This is, by far, my favorite annual event that happens in my area of New York. Though, honestly, this was the second time I had gone in the 21 years I’ve been living here (it’s been running for 36 years). The last time I went was the 30th anniversary, and that was with my parents. Of course, going with them, we didn’t dress up. This time I went with a friend from school. I dressed up this time, and I felt so much more like a part of the whole thing. I thought I’d feel awkward, but I totally felt like I belonged there.

Some highlights of the day: we saw the joust twice and still have no idea how much of it is acting and how much of it is real – though there are some obvious staged routines such as what side each knight rides for and how they act around each other before and after the jousting takes place; I had my first turkey leg and it was incredibly delicious; we watched Don Juan and Miguel, a seemingly random stage performance that was completely hilarious, a jester who juggled and did magic tricks, and a Celtic band.

We also learned that your manliness can be determined by how many “blows to the nethers” you can endure before yielding.

And, as if my life isn’t consumed by school, work, writing, and other hobbies, I’ve decided to create an entire character for myself for the next time I go to this festival. Or any other, for that matter. I’ve going to have so much fun with that!

And now, I leave with you with a terrible picture of me and “Sir William.”

Sorry for the unplanned hiatus. I’ve had a lot going on: getting ready for school, working, working out, getting distracted by the Olympics, reading stuff online instead of books from my TBR pile, trying to write, trying to plot out my novel for NaNoWriMo, and other stuff. I’m also struggling to read Inheritance by Christopher Paolini. For my thoughts on that, here is my recent Facebook status:

I just don’t understand why I’m having such a hard time getting through Inheritance. I think it’s Paolini’s writing style that is bothering me. I think my preferences have changed since reading Brisingr, and I’m really bothered by the overly flowery-flashy way he writes. Especially battle scenes where he paints beautiful pictures of graphic death. And he uses the flowery-ness to drag out scenes that don’t need to be dragged out so long. And I’m not even going to get into his refusal to actually put Eragon and Arya into a romantic relationship like they so obviously should be in. I’m halfway through the book, and I’m going to finish it because I want to know how this series ends, but I may throw the book out a window when I’m done.

And that is why it is taking me ages to read it. Not the fact that it’s over 800 pages long. I just can’t get into it, but I NEED to know how it ends!

And I’m going to force myself to get back into updating here. I just have to structure the time it takes to write a post into my day, or I’ll never get back on track!

WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS SICKENING LANGUAGE AND ACTIONS BY STUDENTS TO A WOMAN OLD ENOUGH TO BE THEIR GRANDMOTHER

This went viral almost instantly, and I’m glad. What makes middle school children think it’s okay to call an old woman a “fat ass” and “bitch?” She’s just sitting there.

I can’t even put words to my feelings of rage and disgust. This video actually had me crying.

But these kids are finally going to be punished, or so the school district claims. And the world is outraged by the actions of these kids.

A fund has been set up to send Karen on vacation, but it looks like she might just be able to retire. In less than a day, a fundraiser with a goal of $5,000, has raised over $90,000. In fact, as I refresh the page right now, it is at… $95,507.

This is something I just found out about, and I can’t not share it with you guys. I live near Rochester, NY, where the Wegman’s chain of grocery stores was started, and it’s something of a source of pride for us. Just like Kodak also was, before it started going under… Anyway, recently a group of students at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough, Massachusetts, created a musical – about Wegman’s. At first it’s almost silly to think of students performing a musical about a grocery store, but then you look at how that reflects on the store itself. Wegman’s clearly has an impact on the people in the communities it comes to. It’s impossible to go anywhere in the Rochester area without seeing a Wegman’s store, and there are many, many people who never shop anywhere else. It really is a great store, with a huge selection of EVERYTHING, and an amazingly diverse array of choices in the hot food dining area. Thinking that there are other people in the country just experiencing for the first time what I take for granted on a daily basis is just incredible. And to see people becoming this dedicated and smitten with the place, well, it makes me proud to come from the place that started it all.

I’m Everywhere!

5-Star Books

Nightrunner Series by Lynn Flewelling
Cut & Run Series by Abigail Roux
Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli
Latter Days by T. Fabris
Havemercy by Jaida Jones, Danielle Bennett
The Survivors by Amanda Havard
The Passage by Justin Cronin
Impossible by Nancy Werlin
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Coda Series by Marie Sexton
Lord of the White Hell by Ginn Hale
Darshian Tales by Ann Sommerville
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Beastly by Alex Flinn
Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare